This is the contact point for theatrical_muse Drizzt Do'Urden. Open to talk or RP, if his mun agrees.

I have seen many races celebrate the day of their birth, or the day of their naming, or the day of their religious dedication. The practice confused me at first, given the variety of reactions to the celebrations. Catti-brie, for instance, is a very generous gift-giver, while fussing in pretense at the very notion she should be gifted in turn.

For me to celebrate my birthday? To mark the advancing of the years, when I shall, barring violent death, number them in centuries? It hardly seems worth it.

Add to it that I will never be able to think of my natal day without it being forever etched in the horror of drow society's ways. My House slaughtered House DeVir on that very night. I was laid upon the altar as sacrifice, a sacrifice only halted because Dinin, my lamentable brother, slew Nalfein, our elder brother.

No, I will lock away the date of my birth from knowledge, even if I could accurately gauge it between translating drow dates to surface time, and learning just how long I wandered as the Hunter. Instead, I will look to my friends, and enjoy the ritual with them, celebrating privately in solitude the anniversary of my arrival on the surface.

Respect.

There is the respect of others, the respect for others, and then there is respect of self.

I think, more than the first two, the third is a part that must be held deep within one's soul for their life to hold merit in their own eyes.

Every time I have lost control of myself to the Hunter, I have teetered in the maws of feeling lost and helpless, even without worth. Killing Masoj Hun'ett made me lose a modicum of self-respect, opened the door to the Hunter, in it's own way.

Finding Mooshie, letting him teach me the ways of Mielikki, made me focus more heavily on my self, on my soul. I learned that which I would tolerate in myself, and that which I could be capable of. The two are not always the same.

I wonder, then, if this was what my father faced. He carved a compromise for himself, holding ideals that did not fit the norms of our society, yet having to survive within it.

I fear the only self-respect he ever knew was first in taking my place, to my sorrow, and then in wrenching control from Matron Malice to end his hunt of me.

It is a fear that provides me a sharp lesson for my life.

Ask me seven questions. Not just any seven questions though. No, to keep it interesting, use the seven questions as per below - just copy and paste the following, replace the blanks with something you want to know/ask (e.g., 3. Donkeys or sandcastles and why?), anything you want, personal, silly, surreal or deep, comment away and I'll answer honestly as I can! Then post this in your own LJ and see what kind of things people want to ask you!

1. What do you think of _____________ ?

2. When did you last ____________?

3. __________ or ___________ and why?

4. What did you ______________?

5. What's your favourite ______________?

6. How would you ______________?

7. Who would you most like to ________ ?

To show you where I live is not so easy a thing for me.

I am a ranger, and I am a Companion of the Hall. I am a drow in exile, and still none too welcome most places I might travel, yet travel I must.

Here...the lands bounded by this map are closest to those I call home.



Icewind Dale served as such for a time, before Mithril Hall. Silverymoon is a place I may easily go these days, thanks to the Lady Ranger Dove Falconhand and her just sister, Lady Alustriel Silverhand.

I think I'd even be welcome for extended stays in Longsaddle, but I would not risk my sanity. Nor poor Guen, if Harkle decided to study the statuette.

Simply put, though I long quested for a home, thinking it to be one place, I have since learned that home is very much within me. It is where I feel at ease, and in the care of friends.

When Mooshie taught me the common language of humans, I do not recall him including a word that means an ideally perfect place, especially in its social, political, and moral aspects.

If he had, we no doubt would have spent much of the afternoon discussing it. Whose ideals? How does the society come to hold a common set of ideals? If everyone does hold the same ideals, would it not be boring?

Now, though, I can look at the idea a little more from the side, instead of diving headfirst into it as I would have then.

Utopia...perfect utopia...cannot exist for a race as a whole.

But it can one person at a time, by being everything you were meant to be and living life with appreciation for it in all its twists and turns.

I'd say Mooshie found his utopia, in his grove, communing with nature so closely. No matter what strife he found there, he was living in his ideal place.

Many a night I have spent in Lady Alustriel's company, and many a day I have walked away to contemplate my lot in life. I find the pursuit of knowledge one that is honorable and needed, as I have been a creature of curiosity since my birth, or so Zaknafien and Vierna both insisted, with varying degrees of curses my way.

However, it is action that primes my hands, that makes my feet tingle, and draws me out beyond the safety of the places where I am welcome to lay my head.

I have discovered that I am never alone; however, in questioning my lot in life, I do look at the other races and their need to pair off. Have I felt that pull? Certainly. I have wanted the companionship of a mate many times, for the sheer acceptance that such a consort can furnish simply by being there.

Some look at Lady Alustriel, and twitter behind their hands at her fondness for me. I admit, the Lady is one of the most beautiful I have ever seen, wise and fair in all that she does. Were it not for the entrance of a guard, once, I might have found it to my liking to call Silverymoon home, even.

Bu that one moment of weakness, where we each had come far too close to one another, was undone by the entrance of the guard, and it served to strengthen us both.

The Lady has her people, and I have my road.

I ponder the idea of kindness with almost childlike curiosity. I saw little of that trait in my time among the people of Menzoberranzan. My time in Blingdenstone, however, taught it to me in spades, as the young svirfnebli drew me out of my self-imposed prison within Belwar Dissengulp's home.

The other side of it, the unkindness, I had learned in spades. From the smallest infractions as a child, imagined or real, I knew painful punishment. I had each odd, to a drow, notion challenged and nearly shattered, on purpose, by my kin. To make me truly one of them, they saw the unkindness as necessary.

I do not.

I remain convinced, as Zak himself often wondered, that drow are not necessarily evil. It is my belief that it is repetitive acts of unkindness that drive every drow to fit the mold decreed by Lloth.

Perhaps that is why I find it difficult to imagine any situation wherein being unkind is the manner of necessity.

I am almost certain, though, that Wulfgar and Bruenor would quickly disagree with me, and that my barbarian friend would call me on the points of his very own training. Perhaps he is correct, but I still think my way of training him was ever more kind than the ways of Melee-Magthere, fighting school of Menzoberranzan.

"Everything passes. Nobody gets anything for keeps. And that's how we've got to live." Haruki Murakami.

Out in the wilds of the Underdark, the law of life was strictly survival. I did not think of the concept of gathering material goods to keep. The most I might be possessive over were the small herd of rothe, or a very comfortable niche to sleep in. There was Guen, of course, but I could only call her to me so often. I certainly never thought of her as belonging to me, though I have, over the years, learned to fear the loss of her figurine.

It took meeting Belwar Dissengulp to show me that friendship could be real, and ever since, it is friendship I have hungered to keep.

Yet I continually befriend those of shorter lifespans. Such as Catti-brie who ties my heart in knots with confusion, setting me at odds with myself.

Regis, in one of those uncanny moments of his once commented that I fight like a devil possessed, without fear of death, because I fear life without him and my other Companions of the Hall.

At night, listening to the sounds of Wulfgar and Catti-brie, I question if maybe he has the right of it.